Walked the main road from the parking lot up to Holder Knob trail and hiked up around the ridge. Mt. Rainier was visible quite a bit due to winter. Some small patches of snow on trail to ridge. A great easy hike for a cold day.

My wife and I, not regular hikers, did the Holder Creek branch. It was a nice hike, very slight incline. The sign said 1.44 miles, but after about .8 - .9 miles the nice trail ends and you can continue up a less maintained trail which is much steeper. The first section would be great for kids or just a relaxing hike. We also checked out just the first bit of Holder Knob, this is much steeper and slightly less maintained but looked to be a good hike if you're looking for more of a challenge. The sign read this portion would be 1.55 miles. I read other trip reports that spoke of mud across the trails. It has been very hot and dry for the past week, but we did not encounter any of that along the trail. Could have also been a different branch.

For my first hike of the Hike-A-Thon, I decided to pick something that was close to home. We started at the trailhead right next to where Highway 18 meets Hobart-Issaquah road. Our hiking group included two people and a corgi. We started the hike around 5:00pm and decided to follow the Holder Knob trail. Once the trail reached an intersection with Whisky Still trail, we followed that to the main gravel trail, which we followed back to the car. According to our mileage tracker, it was just shy of 4 miles. The trail was in good condition and the weather was perfect for an afternoon hike. These trails are shared with horses, so there is some poop on the trails. We ended up making it back to our car at about 7:15. Overall it was a great way to spend some free time in the evening and celebrate the start of the Hike-A-Thon.

I did a loop hike, starting up the road from the new parking lot and continuing on the Whiskey Still trail, Boot trail, Sherwood Trail, and on to the Elk Ridge trail, which I hiked down about 3/4 of a mile before turning around. From there I went up the first section of the Hermit trail, then turned left and looped back on the road all the way to Holder Knob. I returned by the Holder Knob trail. It was an 8.7 mile hike with about 1500 feet cumulative elevation gain. The trails were totally snow-free, and the sun was shining through the light cloud cover. But with recent rains, the trails were fairly muddy, especially given the horse traffic on them. Both the Boot Trail and the Elk Ridge Trail had extensive muddy sections. The worst, though, was the upper section of the Holder Knob trail, above the first lookout. I had seen a large work party working on this trail in early January, but it looks as though they didn't get beyond the lower part of the trail, which is in reasonably good shape. The upper section, though, is almost one continuous mud field. Perhaps with drier weather it will improve, but I hope the work party has scheduled a return date for this section of the trail.